Facing Cancer and Infertility – the Stories

Many cancer patients have endured life-saving treatments and faced infertility. Here are some of their inspiring stories.

Life, Interrupted: A Young Cancer Patient Faces Infertility

Follow Suleika Jaoaud’s story from her perspective as a cancer patient rushing to save her fertility before treatment.

From The New York Times

The family minivan idles at the intersection of 59th and York in Midtown Manhattan. My boyfriend swabs my midriff with alcohol as he steadies the needle.

My parents look on from the front seat, quietly studying their 22-year-old daughter and the young man they’ve known for only a month.

The needle is filled with gonadotropin, a hormone that stimulates the ovaries to produce eggs. I’m late for my checkup at the fertility clinic.

How in the world did I get here?

Last spring, I found out I had leukemia. Before the horror of the news even had time to sink in, I had to absorb a second shock: The chemotherapy treatments that could save my life would also make me infertile.

Leukemia is an emergency, and oncologists are the first responders: They are trained to beat cancer; everything else must take a back seat. It was only after I asked about fertility that the doctors told me about the available options.

Fertility Preservation Prior to Chemotherapy

31 Year Old Breast Cancer Patient Alice Crisci undergoes fertility treatment to preserve her future as a mom prior to chemotherapy.

Broken Hope – A Young Adult Breast Cancer Story

Christine is a 28-year-old female with aggressive, Stage 3 breast cancer, whose oncologist advised against fertility preservation, both in the interest of time and because her cancer grew from estrogen. Here is her inspiring story firsthand.

Few Cancer Patients Offered Fertility Preservation During Treatment

From The Denver Post

Children’s Hospital formed an oncofertility team in 2008, when a group of nurses concerned about their patients’ ability to have children in the future joined with a research fellow to review charts to see how many patients had been informed about fertility preservation.

“They found out it hadn’t been addressed very often,” said Pool, one of six members of the oncofertility team that works in conjunction with Advanced Reproductive Medicine at the University of Colorado, an institution staffed by national leaders in the field.